The Institute for Medical Immunology is located in the heart of the Charleroi Biopole, where some major Walloon biotech operators are concentrated: Immunehealth, a collective research centre specialized in clinical research on vaccines and development of new biomarkers to monitor immune-mediated diseases and immune therapies; the Institute of Molecular Biology and Medicine (IBMM) with which collaborations are daily based through the exchange of researchers and technologies; and several Biotech Spin-offs such as Delphi Genetics, Henogen, DNAVision, and Euroscreen. 

The Institute for Medical Immunology covers a 1200 m² surface and includes a specific pathogen-free animal house. The core facilities include flow cytometry, real-time PCR plateform, material for Western blot analysis, radio-activity counter, optical density counter (ELISA), Elispot lector, confocal microscopes, and all the facilities required for cell cultures (laminar flow boxes, incubators, optical and inverse microscopes). All our laboratories are equipped with state-of-the-art facilities to carry out competitive research programmes. Moreover, the Institute was build in accordance with the Scientific Institute of Public Health Standards for Biosafety level III research units.

The Flow Cytometry Facility includes both Analysis and Sorting Laboratories and is managed by Frédéric Lhommé. The Analysis Lab contains two Dako Cyan ADP LX9 and one Biorad Bio-Plex 200. Dako Cyan ADP LX9 comprises three lasers at blue (488 nm), red (633 nm) and violet (405 nm) wavelengths enable to excite a wide range of fluorochromes. Besides the forward and side scatter channels (FSC and SSC respectively), 5 fluorescence channels are dedicated to the emission of the blue laser excited fluorochromes and fit to the emission of FITC (FL1), PE (FL2), PE-Texas Red (FL3), PE-Cy5 (FL4) and PE-Cy7 (FL5). Two channels are dedicated to the violet laser excited fluorochromes and fit to the emission of Pacific Blue (FL6) and Cascade Yellow (FL7). APC (FL8) and APC-Cy7 (FL9) channels are devoted to the fluorochromes excited by the red laser. PC workstations are used to acquire and analyze samples owing to Summit 4.3 software. The Luminex (Biorad Bio-Plex 200) system is a flexible analyzer based on the principles of flow cytometry  enabling simultaneous analysis of up to 100 different biomolecules (proteins, peptides, or nucleic acids) in a single microplate well, using small samples volumes. The system delivers rapid and cost-effective bioassay results on various assay formats, including nucleic acid, receptor-ligand, enzymatic and immuno-assays.

Sorting Lab consists of a Dako MoFlo and Miltenyi Biotec AutoMACS. The Dako MoFlo is a modular instrument with 2 lasers emitting at the wavelengths of 488 nm and 633 nm allowing the excitation of the common flow cytometry fluorochromes. This instrument is a High-Speed cell sorter able to provide throughputs in excess of 30,000 cells per second. The 4 Way sort module, enables us to sort 4 separate populations from one sample at once, the module CyClone provides the isolation of single cells (or fixed numbers) and deposit them into various tissue culture plates (72 well Terasaki to 1536 well plates). The AutoMACS^TM Separator is a benchtop instrument for high-speed automated cell sorting. Employing the MACS® Technology (Magnetic cell separation), the autoMACS Separator is designed for positive selection as well as depletion of magnetically-labeled cells. The autoMACS Separator uses preset separation programs, thus allowing optimization of cell sorting approaches according to cell abundance and intensity of marker expression. Precise analysis and quantification of rare cells is easy with the AutoMACS pre-sorting capability. Separated cells are immediately ready for experiments, cell analysis, or further subset sorting.

The PCR Workflow is an integrated instrument from Roche combining sample preparation, nucleic acid purification, quantitative RT-PCR, and data analysis. The Magnalyzer allows complete and standardized disruption of cultured cells, samples tissues, and blood cells. The Magnapure LC is a Fully Automated Nucleic Acid Isolation and PCR-Setup in one Instrument. The MagNA Pure LC permits automated nucleic acid purification that matches the LightCycler Instrument's standards for speed, accuracy, and reliability. The LightCycler^TM System from Roche allows to perform real-time PCR quickly. The instrument offers six detection channels that provide flexibility in the selection of detection chemistries (fluorescence detection at 530, 560, 610, 640, 670, and 710nm). The thermal cycler (which holds up to 32 samples) uses heated air and glass capillaries with a high surface-to-volume ratio allowing each cycle of PCR to be completed in around 30 seconds - thus, a PCR run of 40 cycles can take just 30 minutes.